Hi!
First - thank you for the work on the pico.sh suite. I think I first discovered lists.sh on Gemini but now feel like I'm frequently running into your work- most recently when I was working through a problem with charmbracelet/wish and scp & sftp capabilities.
I just saw your blog entry re: lists.sh at https://hey.prose.sh/status-update-2022-03-15#listsshhttpslistssh and wanted to share some thoughts.
From the outset, the concept of my ideation / organization process (aka my list habit) as a microblog was very compelling. When I do not have enough time to flesh something out, being able to *publish* a list of highlights / points in just a minute or five is liberating and an excellent first (or possibly only) step. The list is shared/shareable, it can backdrop a conversation, and is a foundation for larger / additional work. I found myself using the same technique more and more in my work- sharing minimal lists and expanding on them as appropriate.
I found the constraints imposed by the lists.sh to be liberating: they allowed me to focus on the critical content rather than presentation (or verbosity). No more finding the right text <a>here</a> or worrying about whether something should be <i> or <em> or whatever. As an aside, I think this is similar to the value I'm getting from prose.sh: I'd spent a day futzing around w/ hugo, themes, navigation, etc... and realized I'd rather just scp my markdown files somewhere.
As I am writing more and want to produce content regularly, I've (just) begun using lists.sh again as intermediate target. For instance, writing X articles a week and 2X lists a week. As microblog posts, my notes have additional value to myself and (potentially) others.
Nothing stops me from doing all of these things with HTML or markdown. But it takes a fair amount of self-discipline to not add "just one more thing" and ultimately slide down a slippery slope into JS-powered cat pic eyeball tracking (https://hackernoon.com/creating-mouse-tracking-eyes-using-javascript-y31q3upm). The constraints of the platform impose something of a shared aesthetic- which includes a strong emphasis on content. My spartan list does not stand out as unusual just because it is a spartan list.
While we likely share these opinions about the value of lists.sh, less engagement on the service does imply the value proposition is not (yet?) there or clear to other users.
You outlined a range of options for lists.sh in the blog post. I'd like to encourage option #2: rolling lists.sh functionality into prose. Here's... a list ;)
- To me, it already feels like lists.sh features / attributes are a subset of prose.sh functionality plus a slightly quirky input format.
- Separate from prose.sh, I expect lists.sh has very little chance of thriving; as a feature / subset of prose.sh, others can at least discover the value.
- Maintenance of the lists.sh specific functionality would ideally be minimized, relying on shared code & infrastructure of prose.sh.
- There is perhaps a parallel with Github Gists - my impression is that feature was in the doldrums for some time but continued availability and integration with the broader platform has been the key to its current status.
- I can imagine a very smooth end-user experience: I might scp my text files to prose.sh (content-type is inferred from file extension?), my list-of-lists is available at jswank.prose.sh/lists, and my individual lists are at jswank.prose.sh/lists/slug.
Anyhow, thanks again! Please feel free to let me know if there is something I can do to help.
Jason
Greetings!
Thanks for much for writing to us, much appreciated. Sorry it took my so long to respond.
I'm going to go right to the juicy bit of your message
> You outlined a range of options for lists.sh in the blog post. I'd like to encourage option #2: rolling lists.sh functionality into prose.
I've been thinking about this a lot as well. Part of me likes having lists as a separate service because my main prose.sh site is a blog that I want to be curated for that specific purpose.
Having said that I kind of like your idea of creating a `/lists` route that then contains all of the list content.
We’ve also been thinking about using pico.sh as the landing page for users and their services on our platform. So erock.pico.sh would link to all the other services I have in pico.
----- Original message -----
From: Jason Swank <jswank@scalene.net>
To: ~erock/pico.sh@lists.sr.ht
Subject: lists.sh feedback
Date: Wednesday, March 22, 2023 11:35 AM
Hi!
First - thank you for the work on the pico.sh suite. I think I first discovered lists.sh on Gemini but now feel like I'm frequently running into your work- most recently when I was working through a problem with charmbracelet/wish and scp & sftp capabilities.
I just saw your blog entry re: lists.sh at https://hey.prose.sh/status-update-2022-03-15#listsshhttpslistssh and wanted to share some thoughts.
>From the outset, the concept of my ideation / organization process (aka my list habit) as a microblog was very compelling. When I do not have enough time to flesh something out, being able to *publish* a list of highlights / points in just a minute or five is liberating and an excellent first (or possibly only) step. The list is shared/shareable, it can backdrop a conversation, and is a foundation for larger / additional work. I found myself using the same technique more and more in my work- sharing minimal lists and expanding on them as appropriate.
I found the constraints imposed by the lists.sh to be liberating: they allowed me to focus on the critical content rather than presentation (or verbosity). No more finding the right text <a>here</a> or worrying about whether something should be <i> or <em> or whatever. As an aside, I think this is similar to the value I'm getting from prose.sh: I'd spent a day futzing around w/ hugo, themes, navigation, etc... and realized I'd rather just scp my markdown files somewhere.
As I am writing more and want to produce content regularly, I've (just) begun using lists.sh again as intermediate target. For instance, writing X articles a week and 2X lists a week. As microblog posts, my notes have additional value to myself and (potentially) others.
Nothing stops me from doing all of these things with HTML or markdown. But it takes a fair amount of self-discipline to not add "just one more thing" and ultimately slide down a slippery slope into JS-powered cat pic eyeball tracking (https://hackernoon.com/creating-mouse-tracking-eyes-using-javascript-y31q3upm). The constraints of the platform impose something of a shared aesthetic- which includes a strong emphasis on content. My spartan list does not stand out as unusual just because it is a spartan list.
While we likely share these opinions about the value of lists.sh, less engagement on the service does imply the value proposition is not (yet?) there or clear to other users.
You outlined a range of options for lists.sh in the blog post. I'd like to encourage option #2: rolling lists.sh functionality into prose. Here's... a list ;)
- To me, it already feels like lists.sh features / attributes are a subset of prose.sh functionality plus a slightly quirky input format.
- Separate from prose.sh, I expect lists.sh has very little chance of thriving; as a feature / subset of prose.sh, others can at least discover the value.
- Maintenance of the lists.sh specific functionality would ideally be minimized, relying on shared code & infrastructure of prose.sh.
- There is perhaps a parallel with Github Gists - my impression is that feature was in the doldrums for some time but continued availability and integration with the broader platform has been the key to its current status.
- I can imagine a very smooth end-user experience: I might scp my text files to prose.sh (content-type is inferred from file extension?), my list-of-lists is available at jswank.prose.sh/lists, and my individual lists are at jswank.prose.sh/lists/slug.
Anyhow, thanks again! Please feel free to let me know if there is something I can do to help.
Jason